Lounge Clarimento
Today I visited Lounge Clarimento, easy to spot by its striking purple logo. It’s known as a specialty coffee spot, and I’d heard it’s especially known for its tap coffee, made using the batch brew method.
The sign here stands out in pink-purple — if you see it, you’re in the right place.
Since I was planning to try dessert too, I budgeted accordingly and ordered a tap coffee along with toast (10,000 KRW).
The toast was genuinely excellent. It’s made to order and takes about 15 minutes, so I waited a bit — but with a result like this, I’d have waited an hour. Moist and soft, it had the texture of the kind of French toast you’d find in Japan. I don’t think I’d had toast this good in Korea before.
For the coffee, I had the Caramello from their tap coffee lineup — maybe because it was paired with the toast, but it came across as genuinely sweet.
Info: Lounge Clarimento
• Address: 18, Jandari-ro 7an-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
• Price range: 3,300 – 9,000 KRW
• Opening hours: Weekday 8am–7pm / Weekend 10am–7pm
Identity Coffee Lab
They seem to mainly use Origami and Orea drippers here. The baristas were brewing coffee nonstop the whole time I was there.
As for the space — there’s a beautiful little fern-type plant next to the brewing equipment; I wish I’d asked what it was called (another reason to go back). I’m used to seeing Mahlkönig grinders everywhere, so running into a different one here was a fun surprise — it looked like it might be a Lagom, though I’d never seen one in person before, so I’ll have to ask next time. There was also what I think was an Ozik Bold grinder. Either way, the minimal design fits perfectly with the overall identity of the space.
The interior leans heavily modern, built around stainless steel fixtures and glass display cases. Plants placed throughout keep the space from feeling too cold or clinical. The overall palette sticks to black, gray, and white tones. The packaging design, though, has a playful, colorful charm to it — probably meant to express the flavor of the coffee itself.
My take: A spot between Hongdae and Hapjeong with clean, unfussy design and genuinely excellent coffee. The downside is that it gets busy on Saturdays and is closed on Sundays — but if you want to try something new in the world of coffee, it’s worth the visit.
Info : identity coffee Lab
• Address: 139, Donggyo-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
• Price range: 4,000 – 9,000 KRW
• Opening hours: 11am–7:30pm (closed on Sunday)
Visiting Both
Clarimento is the kind of place to settle in — coffee, toast, and a spacious basement lounge worth lingering in. Identity Coffee Lab is more focused, built around the coffee itself and a genuine specialty coffee culture. Visited together, they give a good sense of what Hongdae’s coffee scene looks like beyond its more well-known reputation for nightlife and energy.